St. Louis area rated “fair” viewing zone for Orionid meteor shower

ST. LOUIS — The Orionid meteor shower will be crossing our skies this weekend and under the right conditions, can be a rare viewing opportunity,

The Orionid meteor shower reaches its peak early Sunday. Viewing should be great, but you'll have to stay up late/get up early. Best viewing from 2-5am. Get away from lights, lie flat, & look up. And bundle up, it will be cold! Could see some early Saturday too.

The meteor show will be visible from anywhere on Earth, according to space.com. The shower consists of debris from Halley's Comet hitting the Earth almost head-on.

With the visibility of about 15-20 meteors per hour, there will be a couple of factors that might make the viewing a little difficult. With a full moon slated for the weekend, this will hinder the view a bit along with any other forms of light pollution.

With the St. Louis metro area being rated as a "fair" viewing area by AccuWeather, it would help to travel a bit from the city lights to give yourself an optimal visual experience.

It is suggested by space.com to go out around 1:30 a.m. to give your eyes time to adjust to the night sky and to make sure to only use your eyes to observe the night sky rather than binoculars or a telescope.